You will come to hate the i219-v network adapter on-board on these if your "needs" have any network intensity.

I have tried EVERY permutation of driver, os-reload, advanced settings, and cannot get the thing to perform reliably, but as soon as I hook up a usb 3.0 gigabit nic from a reputable vendor, BOOM, all the problems cease. This is not ideal because a dongle hangs out of the thing and it takes up a usb port.

I actually ordered this model earlier this week, right before it went out of stock (before becoming available again). Note that this model only has HDMI 1.4a, so, if you want to output 4K/60, you'll need to add an active (vis-a-vis passive) MiniDP-HDMI2.0 adapter like this one[amazon.com]. I'll report back with my impressions next week, but I think this a great price for this unit.

I went with a Samsung 960 EVO M.2 NVME SSD and a pair of 4GB 1600 MHz DDR3L SO-DIMMs. NOTE THAT THE 2.5" BAY ONLY SUPPORTS UP TO 7mm HEIGHT. If you plan to add an HDD for data along with an M.2 SSD for OS, some HDDs will not fit in this, particularly the 3TB or larger Seagate HDDs.

I plan to use mine for a Windows 7 or 8.1 Media Center setup, since the Kaby Lake models only provide graphics drivers for Windows 10 (and therefore won't install on Windows 8.1 or earlier).

I actually ordered this model earlier this week, right before it went out of stock (before becoming available again). Note that this model only has HDMI 1.4a, so, if you want to output 4K/60, you'll need to add an active (vis-a-vis passive) MiniDP-HDMI2.0 adapter like this one[amazon.com]. I'll report back with my impressions next week, but I think this a great price for this unit.

I went with a Samsung 960 EVO M.2 NVME SSD and a pair of 4GB 1600 MHz DDR3L SO-DIMMs. NOTE THAT THE 2.5" BAY ONLY SUPPORTS UP TO 7mm HEIGHT. If you plan to add an HDD for data along with an M.2 SSD for OS, some HDDs will not fit in this, particularly the 3TB or larger Seagate HDDs.

I plan to use mine for a Windows 7 or 8.1 Media Center setup, since the Kaby Lake models only provide graphics drivers for Windows 10 (and therefore won't install on Windows 8.1 or earlier).

Oh, that is good to know. Didn't look into 4K yet since I don't have a 4K tv

if your even thinking about 4k this would be pushing it as it is a 5250u i5. Not a normal i5. Passmark is only 3600. I built one of the deskminis that have been on here for a plex serveer with a g4560 (supports hardware transcoding as well) and it would run circles around this and would actually be cheaper. Also since the deskmini runs a full size cpu you can choose how much you want to spend depending on how many transcodes your wanting instead of being stuck with a low end i5

One has to wonder if the newer model linked to on Amazon, is a better deal when 4k and future added transcoding handling is factored in...

I actually bought a Kaby Lake i5 model recently, and it does perform nicely, but I can't use it with anything older than Windows 10 due to the unavailability of compatible graphics drivers. If you're not trying to use Windows Media Center, then am I inclined to agree with you re. the Kaby Lake models.

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from adamlowery
:

if your even thinking about 4k this would be pushing it as it is a 5250u i5. Not a normal i5. Passmark is only 3600. I built one of the deskminis that have been on here for a plex serveer with a g4560 (supports hardware transcoding as well) and it would run circles around this and would actually be cheaper. Also since the deskmini runs a full size cpu you can choose how much you want to spend depending on how many transcodes your wanting instead of being stuck with a low end i5

I'll have to see when mine arrives. I don't plan to run Plex on it; I can run that on my QNAP if I want. Personally, I like that this is a lower-power unit.

I think the DeskMini is a cool setup, but I read that it's not supported before Windows 10.

I have this exact model as a Plex server and it works as long as it's not getting hammered transcoding. I have it serving a couple rokus in the house, and since the rokus can't direct play a lot of my media (it was encoded primarily for best use on my WDTV before it died), there is a lot of transcoding happening. It's especially evident on 1080 files. I can't do two of those at once at all unless I dial back the quality. I'm likely going to move my plex server to an older but beefier Optiplex 990 machine that I pulled from a pile of stuff at my office that was getting junked.

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